Spotlight On: Brittany Culbreth, President & Co-Owner, Emerald C’s Development, Inc.
December 2024 — Brittany Culbreth, the president and co-owner of Emerald C’s Development, Inc., talked with Invest: about the success achieved by the company in a post-pandemic market, largely due to its unique business practices, Jacksonville’s booming population, and a client base spanning numerous industries.
What were the most significant milestones achieved by Emerald C’s Development over the last 12 months?
The depth of the talent in the market has been fantastic. We have recently added some wonderful people to our team, which has allowed us to level up. Through this growth, we are now able to provide higher quality to the marketplace. As we grow, we are able to invest a bit more forethought into our business decisions and the projects we pursue, and we are consequently able to add to Jacksonville’s overall improvement, simultaneously with our own advancement.
Could you provide an overview of the construction industry in Jacksonville?
We are seeing widespread growth in all market sectors, with everything from bagel shops to industrial warehouse projects. Even in corporate offices where growth has slowed, right now the depth of the work that we have spans all market sectors. Emerald C‘s is receiving calls for everything, which is why I can’t say one market is necessarily stronger than another right now, as the projects coming across our plate are varied and vast. Clearly people are moving here, and the construction projects are following. This is an excellent sign for Jacksonville.
What measures does your company employ to attract and retain clients?
Our reputation is everything to us. We do very little advertising, so we rely heavily on word of mouth and cultivating relationships with both our clients and our community. People call us because they know we are going to take care of them. As owners of the company, Jesse and I have hands-on involvement in every project that goes out the door and have the ability to state when something is not right and needs to be fixed. We want to make sure we are doing right by our clients, our subcontractors and our team. That’s what sets us apart. Everyone else tends to employ their teams to work toward a bottom line, but that’s not our goal. Our angle is more about doing right by our clients. We want long-standing relationships instead of short-term gains.
What strategies are you employing to retain the best talent in the construction industry?
We have been blessed because of the superstar talent we have on our team, which itself has been the result of word of mouth. When we meet people whose values align with ours, we know they will be happy working with us every single day, and that’s how we want our employees to feel, too. We don’t tend to advertise openings online. We set the intention and communicate directly with our community to obtain recommendations. If the values align, then everything else falls into place. We’ve been quite fortunate to have been able to attract our current team.
What exciting projects are in the pipeline for Emerald C’s Development?
We genuinely believe every one of our projects is interesting and varied. They each provide a level of excitement and are all vastly different. It’s always interesting working on projects for other entities within our industry, such as offices of fellow designers, engineers, and architects, and other industry partners like commercial furniture dealers. There are multiple projects in the hopper, and our backlog is more than it’s ever been. Emerald C’s is fortunate to be staying busy and profitable.
What are some of the primary challenges facing the construction industry?
Many challenges we face can be traced to government involvement. When the government tries to step in to control the market, it’s detrimental to our industry’s productivity, whether it’s changing materials in the marketplace in efforts to be more “green”, which causes interruptions to supply chains, or changing code requirements, which changes the rulebook we all have to play by. Everyone (from manufacturers to distributors and designers to contractors) then has to learn the new rules and change the way they operate, so that is an interruption to all of our collective businesses. Permitting issues remain a challenge, as we can never get anything approved quickly enough. Antiquated municipal codes remain an issue as well. While Jacksonville does seem to be improving with permitting, the private sector is doing what it can to cushion the blows dealt by these challenges.
What is your outlook for Emerald C’s Development for the next two to three years?
We will continue to emphasize our role in being a resource and a consultant to ensure people are making good financial decisions for themselves. Emerald C’s is also a small business, and we work extensively with other small-business owners. The last thing we want to see is a small-business owner making a poor financial decision because they relied on someone who doesn’t know anything about construction pricing, given the astronomical material escalations that we’ve experienced lately which has made historical pricing data irrelevant. Unfortunately, we frequently see people sign on the dotted line of a lease without ever involving a professional contractor to help determine what their full investment will be. Having a knowledgeable contractor involved early is paramount, and Emerald C’s will continue to emphasize this from a consulting standpoint.
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